Sig Christenson: Missing family is the hardest part

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Love is a funny thing. The person right in front of you can be your life partner, even if it’s your first day in kindergarten.

Sgt. Victor Contreras can tell you all about it. Way back in the day, he and his future wife, Cissy, met at Edgemere Elementary in El Paso. They were friends through seventh grade and then lost contact for several years after going to different high schools.

The next time they met, it was love at first sight.

“I was 23 when we met, she was 22,” said Contreras, who works in the EMT section of the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. “We went to a football game, had a great time at the football game, went to eat at Taco Cabana, and after Taco Cabana pretty much pursued each other, and the rest is history.”

They shared a lot of the same interests and goals, and obviously know a thing or two about parting, reuniting and patience. That comes in handy now.

Contreras left Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for Iraq four months ago. Cissy took their daughter, Maddisen, 5, back to El Paso after closing up their townhouse off U.S. 281 and Thousands Oaks.

Leaving wasn’t easy for Contreras. He’d come to like the Alamo City after coming to town in February 2004 for a medic course at Fort Sam. He also spent a year on post studying to be a licensed practical nurse.

San Antonio, if bigger than El Paso, felt like home. The River Walk, Alamo and the city’s many restaurants captivated Contreras, as they do so many other people.

“We used to go to Canyon Lake all the time just to take our daughter swimming and stuff like that,” he said.

Their clan was born long ago, but ask Contreras, 29, if he can recall meeting his future wife in kindergarten and the memory is a vague moment.

“We were just kids then and we used to do the little kids’ games where you’d pick on the girl, or the girl picks on you, and ever since then we grew up with each other, at times we were in the same classes together. It’s just funny (that I don’t know) how long I’ve really known this person.”

Or, for that matter, how long they were — or will be — apart. The lost years during and after high school have been eclipsed by deployments in two war zones.

Contreras has been away from home two Christmas Days in a row. While in Afghanistan in 2005, he missed Thanksgiving as well.

That was a big adjustment at the time, he says. But as Contreras talks you wonder if adjusting is more a process than an end — something to be managed but never conquered.

“I missed a lot of things. My daughter’s going to be going to the first grade,” he said. “She’s learning how to spell, she’s learning how to add, subtract and all these things that I’ve been missing, so hearing it over the phone and her telling me she knows how to spell and all those kinds of things, it just makes me real proud that she’s my kid, that she’s my daughter. I’m sad because I’m missing out on these things, because those are the things I’ll never get to experience with her. The family is the hardest part, definitely.”